Dragons

[sass_in_the_pants]

It's not like I've done extensive research on dragons or anything, just something that I've noticed.

You find some sort of dragon lore in so many different cultures, at different times. Peoples who have never (or so we think never) encountered one another somehow have concocted a similar creature - flying, lizard-like, carnivorous.

I wonder why that is?

I remember reading in my astronomy class (it was a long time ago, so this is going to be very light on details) I remember reading about the different cultures and their various methodology in astronomy and astrology. I remember being rather shocked at the similarities among the constellations.

I think it's Ursa Major that I'm thinking of right now...in western cultures, it was a bear. In South American ones, the SAME set of stars was a Puma and in African cultures the SAME set of stars was a lion.

All I see if blinking lights. Sometimes it kinda looks like a truck. I never get puma from it that's for sure.

But still, why did different peoples group together the same set of stars and come up with a similar animal to describe it?

Coincidence?

Hmmmmm.....

No really, I don't know.

Anyone?

[hunhee]

Ahh.. I have a fondness for dragons. It's my Chinese Zodiac Symbol

I'll post more later when I have a spare minute about dragons, similarities and differences.

[jynxxxedangel]

I'm certain people of all ancient cultures stumbled onto the remains of prehistoric creatures from time to time, and developed theories and mental pictures as to what sorts of creatures they came from. This is my most-likely explanation for the appearance of dragons in so many different world cultures. I think dragons are especially prevalent in China, is because there are so many deposits of dinosaur and prehistoric animal fossils to be found there.

As for the symbolic animals in constellations, the world has always been smaller place than we are led to believe. Much trading of goods and ideas occurred when the ancient Chinese took to the sea. Chinese trade ships' characteristic donut-shaped ballast stones have been found as far as the western coast of Mexico, and Africa.

[Rev.Reverence]

I'm certain people of all ancient cultures stumbled onto the remains of prehistoric creatures from time to time, and developed theories and mental pictures as to what sorts of creatures they came from. This is my most-likely explanation for the appearance of dragons in so many different world cultures. I think dragons are especially prevalent in China, is because there are so many deposits of dinosaur and prehistoric animal fossils to be found there.

As for the symbolic animals in constellations, the world has always been smaller place than we are led to believe. Much trading of goods and ideas occurred when the ancient Chinese took to the sea. Chinese trade ships' characteristic donut-shaped ballast stones have been found as far as the western coast of Mexico, and Africa.

+1 & I'll add in a bit...

(need coffee)

[Rev.Reverence]

Dragons around the world..

The perpetuation of Dragon myths & legends, goes back to the dawn of "Our Time"... I have heard that is because of Evolution... we have the INSTINCTS of much smaller mammals... we have deeply ingrained fears of fire & snakes... how can you make it scarier? add wings.

How did the Dragon become a helpful freind to several cultures? If we can conquer fear of the unknown, we can then befriend it...

What leads you to this line of study?

[sass_in_the_pants]

Dragons around the world..

The perpetuation of Dragon myths & legends, goes back to the dawn of "Our Time"... I have heard that is because of Evolution... we have the INSTINCTS of much smaller mammals... we have deeply ingrained fears of fire & snakes... how can you make it scarier? add wings.

How did the Dragon become a helpful freind to several cultures? If we can conquer fear of the unknown, we can then befriend it...

What leads you to this line of study?

That's a cool website. Thanks for posting it.

I don't know about the evolution reason so much...that doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Why would we have the instincts of a much smaller mammal when really we never actually WERE that much smaller? Do humans really fear fire? It seems odd, since we've been able to control it for our own purposes for so long.

As for fearing snakes...did you know that ALL higher order primates fear snakes? They did this test with monkeys in particular where they did everything they could to associate the visual of a snake with GOOD things - never worked. The monkey ALWAYS feared the snake. And then they tried to MAKE the monkey afraid of a flower. Never worked. Whatever they did, the monkey would NOT fear a flower.

Interesting, eh? Guy told me about that.

Back to dragons...I wonder why if the reason is that it represents a collective fear we don't have a similar one about sea creatures. Sure there are mythological sea creatures, but I don't see a consistency among cultures as to the type (I could very well be wrong here. Like I said, this isn't really something I research). and I would think that anything in the water would be even MORE frightening since that isn't man's natural habitiat and man is always at a disadvantage there.

Still, interesting food for thought.

What got me thinking about all this? Too much

[sass_in_the_pants]

I'm certain people of all ancient cultures stumbled onto the remains of prehistoric creatures from time to time, and developed theories and mental pictures as to what sorts of creatures they came from. This is my most-likely explanation for the appearance of dragons in so many different world cultures. I think dragons are especially prevalent in China, is because there are so many deposits of dinosaur and prehistoric animal fossils to be found there.

As for the symbolic animals in constellations, the world has always been smaller place than we are led to believe. Much trading of goods and ideas occurred when the ancient Chinese took to the sea. Chinese trade ships' characteristic donut-shaped ballast stones have been found as far as the western coast of Mexico, and Africa.

Do you think prehistoric people uncovered fully intact dinosaur fossils? Again, I'm not disputing the theory, it's just something I don't know much about.

I just think of how rare it is nowadays to find a fully intact dinosaur skeleton, and we have people purposefully looking for them!!

And y'know now that you mention it I think you're very right about the world being smaller...I remember reading this first person account from native americans about what was, in fact, a lost small boat with two dutchmen on it which landed ashore here...some couple hundred years before any European.

Still, I wonder...was there not only contact but enough sharing of science and technology?

Hmmmm

*goes off to run errands and think about it some more*

[Rev.Reverence]

That's a cool website. Thanks for posting it. No worries..

I don't know about the evolution reason so much...that doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Why would we have the instincts of a much smaller mammal when really we never actually WERE that much smaller? Their predecessors were. Do humans really fear fire? It seems odd, since we've been able to control it for our own purposes for so long. We each must learn to control the fear, from another Human. This is a learned behavior, by no means a small one, but fire is just a tool, a child must learn to use it; we are not born with the knowledge of creating & controlling it. That which we do not know, we are either afraid of, &/OR curious about...

As for fearing snakes...did you know that ALL higher order primates fear snakes? YES, I saw something about it on a show about dragon myths & what the archeologist guy theorized... They did this test with monkeys in particular where they did everything they could to associate the visual of a snake with GOOD things - never worked. The monkey ALWAYS feared the snake. And then they tried to MAKE the monkey afraid of a flower. Never worked. Whatever they did, the monkey would NOT fear a flower.

Interesting, eh? Guy told me about that.

Back to dragons...I wonder why if the reason is that it represents a collective fear we don't have a similar one about sea creatures. Sure there are mythological sea creatures, but I don't see a consistency among cultures as to the type (I could very well be wrong here. Like I said, this isn't really something I research). and I would think that anything in the water would be even MORE frightening since that isn't man's natural habitiat and man is always at a disadvantage there. Leviathan myths are plentiful I think...lemme' go check...

Still, interesting food for thought.

What got me thinking about all this? Too much

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

[Rev.Reverence]

Do you think prehistoric people uncovered fully intact dinosaur fossils? Again, I'm not disputing the theory, it's just something I don't know much about.

I just think of how rare it is nowadays to find a fully intact dinosaur skeleton, and we have people purposefully looking for them!!

And y'know now that you mention it I think you're very right about the world being smaller...I remember reading this first person account from native americans about what was, in fact, a lost small boat with two dutchmen on it which landed ashore here...some couple hundred years before any European.

Still, I wonder...was there not only contact but enough sharing of science and technology?

Hmmmm

*goes off to run errands and think about it some more*

Only takes 1 superstitious med-evil bumpkin to find 1 "giant lizard skull"...

[Head Wreck]

Only takes 1 superstitious med-evil bumpkin to find 1 "giant lizard skull"...

and dont forget the welsh. there are some native american indian tribes which share a lot of common words with the welsh. and whats on our flag and embroiled into a lot of our Folklore?

[Rev.Reverence]

and dont forget the welsh. there are some native american indian tribes which share a lot of common words with the welsh. and whats on our flag and embroiled into a lot of our Folklore?

[Destroit]

'Cause they're real like Santa...

That's my answer and I'm sticking to it!

[sass_in_the_pants]

I was talking to Guy about this last night.

He's smart like Google when it comes to stuff like this...

anyway, he was saying that probably the dragon myth does in fact come from dinosaur bones. But I asked him how the flying part got added, I mean there's no way from looking at a dinosaur skull you would figure out that it flew. You would have to find the whole thing intact. He said he didn't get that part either.

Anyway, he was telling me that there's this one place...the name of which escapes me...made up of red sandstone and it's a huge deposit of dinosaur bones. That, according to legend, is where the Titans fought, and lost to the gods - leaving the ground soaked with their blood, and their enormous bones behind.

The theory as to where cyclops came from is the same thing - elephant skulls were found and the hole where the trunk is looks like an eye hole.

This of course leads me to thinking of the whole a priori knowledge thing. Blah blah blah.

I'm going to drink more coffee.

[cptdeath]

appearently at some point carniverous birds prayed exclusivly on primates for along time probably thousands of years.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

As no one else seems to be taking this road.. I will.

Perhaps, dragons were at one time, real.

A common thread in dragon myths is that IF you some how killed one.. it's body would dissolve or burn up shortly after death.

Another common thread is that dragons could fly.

And yet another is that they could breath fire and or noxious fumes.

Around the turn of the 19th century there was a theory put forth that tied those three traits together to not only explain why such a large creature could fly... but also why we never find any body's.

If the "dragon" could produce a large amount of strong stomach acid, and could somehow flood chambers within it's larger bones with said acid... it would result in the creation of... some gas... I can;t remember which one right now, but hydrogen sulfide comes to mind. That gas would in affect make the dragon lighter so that it could fly. To land or just control it's altitude, it would have to release the gas. The gas though, is extremely flammable. So, the dragon would need a bio-chemical sparker to ignite the gas safely. Most likely in the roof of the mouth.

Now, to stay alive, the dragon would need to be able to heal very quickly, or it would run out of bone rather fast. So they would have been rather hard to kill. Also, the moment one were to die.. the chemical process that gave it so much power.. would run out of control and destroy any remains.

I have a book somewhere around here that goes into the theory with far more detail. It's been along time since I read it... not even sure if I still have the book.

[jynxxxedangel]

I had that same coffee table/childrens' book years ago, Gaf! I cannot remember the title of it to save the life of me! Everything that inhabited the strange island was diagrammed and labeled, in the manner of a scientific diary. I recall one creature giving me terrible nightmares; it was like a humaniod-looking tree stump with a poisonous springing trap. Please help me out on the title, though-- I sure would like another copy of this book, as it was lost when someone stole all my belongings years ago..

Edit: I found a book titled, "The Flight Of Dragons," by Peter Dickinson, on Amazon.com!!! This is not the particular book I was looking for, but it sounds very similar.

[Homicidalheathen]

dragons are kinda like those pink elephants everyone see's if they get alcohol poisoning or detox sick.

thery are astral creatures

i had to battle one my first acid trip.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I had that same coffee table/childrens' book years ago, Gaf! I cannot remember the title of it to save the life of me! Everything that inhabited the strange island was diagrammed and labeled, in the manner of a scientific diary. I recall one creature giving me terrible nightmares; it was like a humaniod-looking tree stump with a poisonous springing trap. Please help me out on the title, though-- I sure would like another copy of this book, as it was lost when someone stole all my belongings years ago..

Edit: I found a book titled, "The Flight Of Dragons," by Peter Dickinson, on Amazon.com!!! This is not the particular book I was looking for, but it sounds very similar.

I have been looking.. cant find it. But this was not a children's book. It was a book on myths and the study of them to root causes.

[Rev.Reverence]

I was talking to Guy about this last night.

He's smart like Google when it comes to stuff like this...

anyway, he was saying that probably the dragon myth does in fact come from dinosaur bones. But I asked him how the flying part got added, I mean there's no way from looking at a dinosaur skull you would figure out that it flew. You would have to find the whole thing intact. He said he didn't get that part either. If I was a med-evil-bumpkin...& found some wing bones (Pterodactyl)... & a nice tear shaped skull (very youngT-rex)...I would taxidermy them together... make me a side show...

Anyway, he was telling me that there's this one place...the name of which escapes me...made up of red sandstone and it's a huge deposit of dinosaur bones. That, according to legend, is where the Titans fought, and lost to the gods - leaving the ground soaked with their blood, and their enormous bones behind.

The theory as to where cyclops came from is the same thing - elephant skulls were found and the hole where the trunk is looks like an eye hole. Mammoths...I heard from the archeologist. (there were no elephants in Greece)

This of course leads me to thinking of the whole a priori knowledge thing.????? Blah blah blah.

I'm going to drink more coffee.

HERE WE GO AGAIN?

[Rev.Reverence]

As no one else seems to be taking this road.. I will.

Perhaps, dragons were at one time, real.

A common thread in dragon myths is that IF you some how killed one.. it's body would dissolve or burn up shortly after death.

Another common thread is that dragons could fly.

And yet another is that they could breath fire and or noxious fumes.

Around the turn of the 19th century there was a theory put forth that tied those three traits together to not only explain why such a large creature could fly... but also why we never find any body's.

If the "dragon" could produce a large amount of strong stomach acid, and could somehow flood chambers within it's larger bones with said acid... it would result in the creation of... some gas... I can;t remember which one right now, but hydrogen sulfide comes to mind. That gas would in affect make the dragon lighter so that it could fly. To land or just control it's altitude, it would have to release the gas. The gas though, is extremely flammable. So, the dragon would need a bio-chemical sparker to ignite the gas safely. Most likely in the roof of the mouth.

Now, to stay alive, the dragon would need to be able to heal very quickly, or it would run out of bone rather fast. So they would have been rather hard to kill. Also, the moment one were to die.. the chemical process that gave it so much power.. would run out of control and destroy any remains.

I have a book somewhere around here that goes into the theory with far more detail. It's been along time since I read it... not even sure if I still have the book.

Cool thesis...I should love to dig into that...

[Troy Spiral (13)]

The farther you go back through evolution the more closely humanity was a single band at one time that eventually branched off. Similarities between an ancient culture that later became known as separate cultures should be common, then after we widely dispersed communication slowly became faster and faster then again mix/matching ideas. This is the key part, the rest is in the details. But once this one is understood (and is a fact rather than the stuff below) it gets a lot easier.

I saw a show once that said that giant comet impact may have caused this myth in that the giant streaming (serpentine) tail of a comet and (what would have seemed like) "fire" raining down would have been seen widely. With all the other gods/goddesses/myths based around astronomical events (the sun being the key one, as its usually said to have spawned more gods than any other object.) this isn't as far fetched as it sounds to modern ears.

I toyed with the idea that maybe dinosaurs could have given rise to the idea of dragons somehow via some ancient collective memory. But that IS pretty far fetched since there wasn't even any legitimate Hominina (humans or other animals similar to homo sapiens) around at the time (3-5 million years ago, vs 60+ million years for dinosaurs). But as mentioned above, dinosaur FOSSILS could account for this.

[Simon Bar Sinister]

give me your dirty love

like you might surrender to some dragon in your dreams

[sass_in_the_pants]

Mammoths...I heard from the archeologist. (there were no elephants in Greece)

Weird. Everything I've read describes them as like elephants, not mammoths.

Here's the article on elephants in Greece:

'Cyclops'-like remains found on Crete

Thursday, January 30, 2003 Posted: 1:52 PM EST (1852 GMT)

Skull of an elephant. The animal's European ancestors had similar anatomies.

IRAKLIO, Greece (AP) -- Researchers on the southern Greek island of Crete have unearthed the fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of a Deinotherium Gigantisimum, a fearsome elephant-like creature that might have given rise to ancient legends of one-eyed cyclops monsters.

The 7 million-year-old remains suggest the mammal moved around larger areas of Europe than previously believed, possibly swimming long distances in search of food.

"It was more widespread than we thought," said Charalampos Fassoulas, a geologist who headed the excavations by the University of Crete's Natural History Museum.

The 4 1/2-foot (1.4-meter) tusk was found in September, along with seven fossilized teeth the size of softballs and several bones on farmland cleared to plant olive trees.

"We don't have many fossils of this animal, so everything we find increases our knowledge about it and its habitat," Fassoulas said, waving his hand over a lab table holding the finds.

The species -- whose tusks curved downward from its chin -- was the largest of the pre-elephants and reached nearly 15 feet (4.5 meters) tall. Its remains have been found mainly in central Europe.

Fassoulas speculated the elephants reached Crete from nearby Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey, possibly swimming part of the way across the southern Aegean Sea archipelago during periods where sea levels were lower.

"Vegetarian animals could swim a lot," he said. "And we believe that these animals came probably from Asia Minor via (the islands of) Rhodes and Karpathos to reach Crete."

Remains of other elephant ancestors have previously been found on mainland Greece, leading some researchers to speculate that bones found by ancient Greeks may have become part of their mythology.

A large hole in the middle of the elephant's skull -- the nasal cavity for its trunk -- could have given rise to the tales of the cyclops, the ferocious mythological giant with one eye that appears in Homer's "Odyssey" and other stories.

"People who lived in the early Greek period may have seen (elephant) bones and couldn't have imagined where they could have come from," said Fassoulas.

He urged other farmers to look out for fossilized bones in eastern Crete, where the tusk and bones were unearthed.

"Unfortunately we didn't find the skull which is very important. This would give us a lot of information," he said.

The tusk, broken in several places, will be set in plaster before being put on public display.

Here's another one from national geographic:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...05_cyclops.html

[Draco1958]

I had that same coffee table/childrens' book years ago, Gaf! I cannot remember the title of it to save the life of me! Everything that inhabited the strange island was diagrammed and labeled, in the manner of a scientific diary. I recall one creature giving me terrible nightmares; it was like a humaniod-looking tree stump with a poisonous springing trap. Please help me out on the title, though-- I sure would like another copy of this book, as it was lost when someone stole all my belongings years ago..

Edit: I found a book titled, "The Flight Of Dragons," by Peter Dickinson, on Amazon.com!!! This is not the particular book I was looking for, but it sounds very similar.

Could the book you are looking for be titled Dragonology? That is an interesting book that also has a calender and some other things you can get. It comes across in a scientific manner.

[sass_in_the_pants]

The farther you go back through evolution the more closely humanity was a single band at one time that eventually branched off. Similarities between an ancient culture that later became known as separate cultures should be common, then after we widely dispersed communication slowly became faster and faster then again mix/matching ideas. This is the key part, the rest is in the details. But once this one is understood (and is a fact rather than the stuff below) it gets a lot easier.

I saw a show once that said that giant comet impact may have caused this myth in that the giant streaming (serpentine) tail of a comet and (what would have seemed like) "fire" raining down would have been seen widely. With all the other gods/goddesses/myths based around astronomical events (the sun being the key one, as its usually said to have spawned more gods than any other object.) this isn't as far fetched as it sounds to modern ears.

I toyed with the idea that maybe dinosaurs could have given rise to the idea of dragons somehow via some ancient collective memory. But that IS pretty far fetched since there wasn't even any legitimate Hominina (humans or other animals similar to homo sapiens) around at the time (3-5 million years ago, vs 60+ million years for dinosaurs). But as mentioned above, dinosaur FOSSILS could account for this.

Regarding the first part...

Wouldn't it be the case then that only knowledge gained while we were a single band would be shared? When was astronomy studied?

When did this single band separate?

I guess if I knew the answers to these two questions, it would help to determine why so many people hold the constellations constant among cultures.

As far as the dragon thing goes...very interesting.

I think about that, and the cyclops thing, and then I think about my cousin Drake (which means dragon!), who is four. He told me he saw a cat-raccoon when we were in the woods. A cat-raccoon, eh? Everyone laughed, but the kid's clever and he doesn't lie (well, not about this kind of stuff) And so I went through Guy's wildlife magazine and Drake pointed to a picture and said 'that's it!' It was a fox. And when you look at a fox, and you don't know what a fox is, it really DOES look like a cross between a cat and a raccoon. So, based on his knowledge, he was absolutely right - he saw a cat-raccoon. I think about the legend of the dragon and I think these people were trying to tell us something but our set of imagery is so different we don't understand what they were telling us.

The other thing about dinosaurs living at the time of humans...animals are tricky things. They just recently found the Coelacanth long thought to be extinct. Granted that was in the ocean, and ANYTHING can hide in the ocean forever and not be found. I guess I also think it would be possible that there were a few dinosaur-like creatures that kept on surviving that perhaps did have contact with early humans.

I dunno...stranger things have happened...